This blog post was written by Madison (Mady) MacPeek, a 9th grade Living Environment student at Lancaster High School, Lancaster NY.      The students and teacher in S11 have been getting very green lately. For the 2013 Erie County Department of Environment and Planning Earth Day Rain Barrel Painting Contest they have done just that. The Coca - Cola Bottling Company of Buffalo provided the blank barrels, but the students in Mrs. Balling's Biology class gave it personality. The rain barrel was first sanded and primed with Glidden Gripper. Rain Barrel primed with Glidden Gripper.      The design concept centered around the idea that water is necessary for all life on Earth, and the students painted the barrel during 5 minute class breaks between periods.  The design sketched out on the barrel The paints that we used. The parts of the design were color coded to match paint colors that we had available. ...

Since the day we moved in I have HATED this garage door. It just made our house look so boring. I have always wanted a garage door that has windows and all of the cute details that adds charm and curb appeal to a house. However those charming carriage garage doors cost some major money and replacing a garage door that works just to buy one that looks pretty seems like a pretty big waste to me. I read about painting fake windows on this blog and decided that I had to try it. After all, it's only paint.  http://foreverdecorating.blogspot.com/2011/04/carrige-house-look-garage-doors.html Before I read her post I had never noticed that garage door windows always look black. So they are really easy to fake. Her garage doors were already small rectangular panels which lead easily to small square "windows." My garage door is just 4 flat boards which meant a LOT of measuring but it gave me the flexibility to choose whatever design I wanted. Today was a beau...